Milliennium Force question

I can't figure out how MF attaches to the catch car because there is never any parts hanging on the bottom of the trains when it zips by the line and the catch car is always flat when it comes down the hill and I was just wondering if anyone knew how it hooks up to go up the hill.

If i am not mistaking, i think thier is a latch thing under the train while you are in the station. It then de latches when you are about to go down the hill. You can feel the cable latch when it comes down!

I have kinda seen underneath the train before after getting off Millennium Force. You can kind of see the underneath when you get past walking underneath the bunny hill on the ride exit. Coolkid, your right because I've seen the catch car come down and lock into place. :)

Millennium Force has a conventional chain clutch (and a set of slightly-less-conventional safety dogs) located near the fifth or sixth axle (somewhere under the fifth car). The catch car has near its back end an opening comparable to a standard roller chain link.

The catch car grabs the train at a point just past the middle so that it can pull the train far enough to reliably get its center of mass past the peak of the hill. This involves a couple of trade-offs. If the catch car attaches too far forward, the catch car will have to travel much further down the drop before the train will over-run it. If it attaches too far back, the train will overrun the catch car before it gets all the way to the top. Plus, the catch car will have to be even longer than it is. So they try to make the catch car just long enough that its lower end will crest the top of the hill just as the train is letting go.

The chain dog on any coaster is properly called a "clutch" because its function is that of an over-running clutch. It resists movement in a reverse direction, applies drive force in a forward direction, and will allow the driven element (the train) to easily over-run in a forward direction if it is moving faster than the drive chain or cable. As it does at the top of the lift on all coasters, and at the bottom of the lift on most coasters.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Thanks that was very helpful.